Photo ~Image showing Raphael's "The Deposition" combined with a photograph of an immobile Palestinian.

Under the auspices of the Palestinian Authority, an art exhibit mashing-up Biblical images by European masters with contemporary photos of Palestinians suffering under Israeli occupation has been especially prepared for next week’s visit to the region by Pope Francis, it was reported on Thursday.

The Palestinian Museum — an institution scheduled to open in Birzeit in 2015 — presents images of Jesus as a modern Palestinian, according to a Palestinian Media Watch report. It reinforces the “PA message [that] that Palestinians suffer as Jesus did” and by “claiming he was not a Judean as in Christian tradition, but rather a Palestinian,” the PA therefore claims “a Palestinian history dating back to the time of Jesus.”

According to a report in official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, the images will be displayed in the courtyard of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem during Pope Francis’ visit, in order to “expose Palestinian suffering caused by Israel.”